Reading aloud has been central to our family culture since before we were a family. When Ari and I were finally in the same country after we'd spent about 6 months dating long distance (as in, across the Atlantic), we drove together from his parents' home in Houston back to California where I was studying. We took turns with one of us driving while the other read The Lord of the Rings. He was a grad student in Tucson, Arizona, and every other weekend he coaxed his 1984 Honda Accord the 8 hours to Pasadena to see me. We spent hours every Sunday afternoon before he needed to leave for the long drive back sitting in my room drinking tea and reading favorite books aloud to each other. Since then, we've pretty much always had a book going. We read The Jungle Book on our honeymoon. I nursed my first newborn while Ari read an Elizabeth Goudge novel to me. Many of the books on our bookshelf trigger memories of where we were and what we were doing when we read them together.
When our oldest children were small, they didn't naturally fit into our own reading aloud. However, after spending about 2 years researching homeschooling methods in obsessive detail and buying nothing, I came across Sonlight and placed my first order (for my 3 year old) within days. The fact that it was all books all the time instantly resonated with me. We've never looked back. The first Core we bought was enjoyed by both our oldest children. E14 was not yet 2 and insisted on hearing Go, Dog! Go! often enough that I could probably still give a full recitation. I suspect part of his enjoyment stemmed from the fact that it was the first book where he could really understand all the words. It was amazing to watch the children's attention spans grow as I read to them day after day. All three of their younger brothers have been gestated to Sonlight and have been listening in for as long as they have had working ears.
At the beginning of the 2019-20 school year, E14 and P15 both started doing the first high school level Core, designed for students to read themselves instead of a parent reading aloud. After about a week of juggling whose turn it was with which book, they started reading aloud to each other. However, E14 loathed and despised the History of US series by Joy Hakim and began refusing to cooperate. I had thought it would take me less time to have them read the books and then ask them questions, but the emotional cost to everyone was so high I gave up. Now, I'm back to doing what I did before: I read aloud to them, and I can tell by their reactions that they're paying attention. We're using all the books except History of US, and learning a lot more than E14 was when he was being force fed books he hated and actively working to disbelieve every word of them. Now, if I'm taking too long to fulfill my other household tasks, he'll nag: "Can you do our reading? How long do we have to wait?"
I've shifted from feeling like I need to check off every item in the Sonlight schedule to seeing it as a box full of good books selected by someone whose taste is usually pretty good, which we can enjoy in our own way and at our own pace. B10 wasn't really tracking with the intro to US history books, so we set them aside. He listens in to older and younger siblings' books when he wants to, and picks up books from the shelves that look interesting. H8 and E5 enjoy the Sonlight Intro to World Cultures books, but also like doing other things, so every few days I'll read them several days' worth of stories. We supplement with other (non-Sonlight) books - E14's science this year has consisted of me reading him What If?, Physics for Future Presidents, and Omnivore's Dilemma in addition to his own wood and metal work experiments. And after dinner, Ari reads us all Lord of the Rings while I clean the kitchen, P15 sits quietly, and the boys gain the social skill of keeping elbows out of each other's ears while begging for another chapter.
Does your family read aloud? What are some of your favorite books?
When our oldest children were small, they didn't naturally fit into our own reading aloud. However, after spending about 2 years researching homeschooling methods in obsessive detail and buying nothing, I came across Sonlight and placed my first order (for my 3 year old) within days. The fact that it was all books all the time instantly resonated with me. We've never looked back. The first Core we bought was enjoyed by both our oldest children. E14 was not yet 2 and insisted on hearing Go, Dog! Go! often enough that I could probably still give a full recitation. I suspect part of his enjoyment stemmed from the fact that it was the first book where he could really understand all the words. It was amazing to watch the children's attention spans grow as I read to them day after day. All three of their younger brothers have been gestated to Sonlight and have been listening in for as long as they have had working ears.
At the beginning of the 2019-20 school year, E14 and P15 both started doing the first high school level Core, designed for students to read themselves instead of a parent reading aloud. After about a week of juggling whose turn it was with which book, they started reading aloud to each other. However, E14 loathed and despised the History of US series by Joy Hakim and began refusing to cooperate. I had thought it would take me less time to have them read the books and then ask them questions, but the emotional cost to everyone was so high I gave up. Now, I'm back to doing what I did before: I read aloud to them, and I can tell by their reactions that they're paying attention. We're using all the books except History of US, and learning a lot more than E14 was when he was being force fed books he hated and actively working to disbelieve every word of them. Now, if I'm taking too long to fulfill my other household tasks, he'll nag: "Can you do our reading? How long do we have to wait?"
I've shifted from feeling like I need to check off every item in the Sonlight schedule to seeing it as a box full of good books selected by someone whose taste is usually pretty good, which we can enjoy in our own way and at our own pace. B10 wasn't really tracking with the intro to US history books, so we set them aside. He listens in to older and younger siblings' books when he wants to, and picks up books from the shelves that look interesting. H8 and E5 enjoy the Sonlight Intro to World Cultures books, but also like doing other things, so every few days I'll read them several days' worth of stories. We supplement with other (non-Sonlight) books - E14's science this year has consisted of me reading him What If?, Physics for Future Presidents, and Omnivore's Dilemma in addition to his own wood and metal work experiments. And after dinner, Ari reads us all Lord of the Rings while I clean the kitchen, P15 sits quietly, and the boys gain the social skill of keeping elbows out of each other's ears while begging for another chapter.
Does your family read aloud? What are some of your favorite books?
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